German factory orders fell 10.6% in August, while orders excluding large contracts fell over three months

German factory orders fell 10.6% in August, the first monthly drop since April, the Federal Statistical Office said in provisional figures. Economists had expected a decline of 1%.

Without large contracts, orders fell 0.1%. On the three-month comparison the office calls less volatile, orders from June through August were 1.3% higher than in the previous three months. Exclude large contracts, and they were down 2.6%.

The office said the monthly decline was "almost entirely attributable" to other transport equipment, the sector covering aircraft, ships, trains and military vehicles, where orders fell 61.5% from July. It said the sector had more than doubled in July, up a revised 129.4%, on an exceptionally large batch of orders for ships, trains and aircraft.

Germany's economy ministry called August a "marked setback." Without the fall in large orders, it said, the situation was virtually unchanged from July, and the growing importance of public contracts is making orders highly volatile.

Domestic orders fell 17.3%, a far larger drop than the 5.4% decline in orders from abroad.

The statistics office publishes August industrial production on Wednesday.